The Art of Drowning
by vapourtrailreads
Summary: "Why won't you let me?" he whispers. "Why won't you let me let go of you?" Spoilers for entire First Class series


this fic is sponsored by the countless illegal xmen movie snippets on YouTube, that real handy quote website that shows almost-complete movie conversations, the ad-filled yet reliable website that a friend recommended to me for watching Good Omens, when the party's over by Billie Eilish, and Drowning Lessons by My Chemical Romance. for extra feels, please approach Someone Like You by Adele.

presenting… my longest work to date! over 10000 words in total! ahhh! this story goes out to MoonlitePage because… i think i said that this was gonna go up after my trip ended and uh. its been more than seven months since then so have this very big apology from me *deep breath* IM SORRY

anyway, in this fic i will, among other things, attempt to tie up the loose ends at the end of Dark Phoenix, fix some shit, and maybe add a few strings of my own…? please dont crush me in a government train car, just leave some constructive criticism in the reviews :" thank you

okay. enough a/n procrastination.

Spoilers for the entire X-Men: First Class series. (yes, including that shitstorm Dark Phoenix) HIGHLY RECOMMEND WATCHING ALL FOUR MOVIES FIRST

**The Art of Drowning (and of Letting Go)**

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.

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Erik Lehnsherr has never done anything like this.

He can do things no one else can, things that should be impossible, but he's never done something like this, as enormous and immovable as _this. _Yet something in him, primal and filled with wounded rage, is telling him to hold on to that sub, and he follows that urge, even though very close by, he can hear another something telling him the exact opposite.

_"You have to let it go!"_ screams someone from the largest American ship in the water, but it's too late for that now—he manages to gulp down a precious half-lungful of air, just before he's dragged down along with Shaw's submarine into the green-black depths of the sea.

His eyes burn from the salty water, and his arms are cramping up with the strain of holding on, and all of a sudden there are arms around him and there's a voice, speaking in his head, clear and calm.

_You can't. _The words sound in his mind, and Erik realises that it's not his own thoughts he's hearing. _You'll drown. You have to let go._

Air slips from his nose and mouth as he struggles to maintain his hold on the submarine, but the arms around his neck are pulling him back, away from the sub away from _Shaw—_

_I know what this means to you, but you're going to die. _

If Erik wasn't so busy with the sub and trying not to drown, he would have scoffed and rolled his eyes. How could this person, this _stranger,_ possibly know anything about it? How inferior and low Shaw made—_makes _him feel? How dying in his attempts would be better than living with the failure of making him pay?

_Please, Erik. _The voice carries a note of desperation in those two words, enough to make Erik's blinding anger fade just a fraction. _Calm your mind._

He can't tell if it's his own will or the shock of hearing his own name that makes him let go of the submarine.

They surface, gasping. Erik finally gets a good look at the person next to him—a young man about his age, with pale eyes, blue, Erik guesses, and damp brown hair. It's probably curly, but right now, Erik's too angry to care much about anything.

"Get off me," he mutters, shoving at the man as best as he can while still treading water. "_Get off me!_"

"Just calm down—_we're here!_" The man waves frantically at the big ship, and it's only now that Erik notices he has a distinct British accent and the fact sinks in that _Shaw has gotten away, _that he has failed _again._

"Who are you?" he shouts, anger clouding his senses and making his vision fuzzy.

"My name's Charles Xavier," the man gasps, and all of a sudden, Erik remembers where he's heard that voice before.

"You were in my head," he demands, locking his eyes on Charles as they bob up and down in the water. "How'd you do that?"

"You have your tricks, I have mine, I'm like you, just _calm—your mind_," Charles implores, in between hefty gulps of air. His eyes are filled with understanding instead of rage, and it's something that he's never seen from anyone else who knew of his power.

But that's not the only thing that catches Erik off guard.

After a beat, Charles's words sink in, and the magnitude of what he's just heard settles over him.

_I'm like you. I'm like you. I'm like you._

"I thought I was alone," he splutters, overly aware of how vulnerable he sounds, his earlier fire all but gone.

"You're not alone," Charles replies breathlessly, a brilliant smile breaking across his face. "Erik, _you're_ _not_ _alone._"

And for the first time in his memory, Erik lets himself go, the tension leaching from his body as the searchlights find them.

_._

_._

_._

"From what I know about you, I'm surprised you managed to stay this long."

Erik freezes, the case in his hand forgotten. He turns on the spot to face the person who saved him the night before.

_Charles,_ he remembers. He's not just any person. He's like Erik. He has his tricks, just like Erik has his own.

He's also smiling, which unsettles Erik slightly.

"What do you know about me?" he asks, half wary and half genuinely curious.

"Everything."

"Then you know to stay out of my head." Erik turns away from Charles and starts walking again, trying to block out the image of Charles standing on the doorstep, wearing a mask of what looks disturbingly to him like disappointment.

"I'm sorry, Erik, but I've seen what Shaw did to you."

Erik stops.

"I've _felt _your anger," Charles says, and this is where he seems to hesitate for the first time. "I can help you."

He scoffs. "I don't need your help."

"Don't kid yourself, you needed my help last night," insists Charles.

_More like I needed you meddling in my affairs and fucking up my plan,_ Erik thinks. The other voice in his head begs to differ, and he shoves it away into a dark corner of his brain.

"It's not just me you're walking away from." Erik doesn't know why that line bothers him, why would he be walking away from _Charles_ of all things— "Here you have the chance to be part of something much bigger than yourself."

Erik looks at Charles, sees the honesty in his face.

"I won't stop you leaving. I could." Still facing Erik, he begins to walk backwards toward the facility.

"But I won't," Charles says.

Even before he sets foot through the door, Erik's mind is made up.

_._

_._

_._

The gun clicks, and Charles winces. "You're sure?"

Erik nods and plants his feet more firmly, focusing on Charles's forehead—he knows by now that looking into Charles's eyes will make him lose his focus. "I'm sure."

"Got it." Charles's mouth twists as he breathes heavily through his nose. His agonised look is so adorable that Erik starts to laugh despite himself, and he grins wide as he waits for him to pull the trigger.

But Charles just gasps and lowers the gun abruptly, holding it as loosely as he can, like it's a red-hot iron burning his skin.

"No. No, I'm sorry, I can't shoot anybody point blank, let alone my _friend_," he says, his eyes pleading.

He feels an inexplicable rush of aversion towards the word _friend. _"Oh, _come on_," Erik gripes, grabbing the barrel of the gun and holding it against his forehead, the cool metal giving him something else to focus on besides Charles and the lingering bitter-sweet feeling in his chest. "You _know_ I can deflect it. And you're always telling me I should push myself—"

"If you _know_ you can deflect it, then you're not challenging yourself!" Charles pulls the gun away and sighs. "Whatever happened to the man who was—who was trying to raise a _submarine?"_

The memory brings a bad taste to his mouth. Erik groans angrily and grabs the gun from Charles's hand. "I can't. Something that big, I need the situation, the anger..."

"The anger's not enough."

"It's gotten the job done all this time," he shoots back, thinking that Charles shouldn't question how he controls his powers.

Besides, it really doesn't matter to him what Charles thinks of his methods, right?

"It's nearly gotten you _killed_ all this time." Charles shakes his head, exasperated. Then he looks into the distance, and his face brightens for no apparent reason. Not that Erik thinks Charles needs a reason to smile. "Hey, come here."

Erik follows him to the edge of the balcony. "You see that?"

In the distance, the upturned silver-white dome of a satellite dish looms.

"Try turning it to face us."

Erik whips his head round to look at Charles. He's still smiling, casually fidgeting on the spot.

It's impossible for him, Erik knows that. And yet, just like when they were recruiting, just like on the steps of that facility, he finds himself unwilling to disappoint this energetic young man standing with him in more ways that he could ever have imagined. Erik takes a deep breath, gathering all the buried frustration, stress, hatred, _anger_ that he's had pent up inside him over the years, and flings his hands forward, reaching for the dish.

The metal stays quiet, standing its ground. After a while, Erik's arms give out and he collapses onto the parapet, trembling with shallow, rapid gasps.

"You know," Charles's voice sounds, and he turns to look at him. "I think true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity."

Erik looks at him, breaths slowing.

"Would you mind if I—" Charles raises his hand and wiggles his fingers.

Erik remains silent. Charles brings his fingers to his temple. A crease appears between his eyes.

And Erik sees—

—_candlelight, soft and yellow, casting dancing grey shadows on the faces around him. His mother. His father. Candlelight from the delicate menorah before them, set out on the small plain table that they are huddled around._

_Happiness, coursing through him, happiness and love, love for his parents, gratitude that they are here with him, to share _his _happiness. Hope for a future as good as this one._

_Hope. Joy. Love._

Erik gasps, like a drowning man surfacing for air, and the memory fades, leaving an imprint of warmth in its wake.

"What did you just do to me?" he rasps, blinking his tears away. He gropes for the memory, but it's already faded, submerged again somewhere in the dark recesses of his brain.

"I accessed the brightest corner of your memory system." Charles comes over and rests his elbow on the parapet. "It's a very beautiful memory, Erik. Thank you."

"I didn't know I still had that," he whispers.

"There is so much more to you than you know. Not just pain, and anger." Charles's eyes look straight into his, blue into grey. "There's good too, I felt it. And when you can access all of that..." He laughs, awe glowing on his face. "You'll possess a power no one can match. Not even me."

Erik wonders how he manages to make everyone have faith, how he can convince them to get up from the pits and reach for something better. He wonders how _Charles _himself manages not to let the weight of the world crush him into his bed every morning, how he manages to _let go _of the things that don't matter, like he's always asking Erik to.

"Now come on," Charles says, and Erik's train of thought is broken. "Try again."

Erik turns back to the satellite dish; it stares back at him, unmoving.

He extends a hand, this time concentrating not on the familiar flaming hatred in his gut, but the comforting glow of warmth he felt earlier. And even from this distance, he can feel the metal calling _to_ him, feel it _begging _to obey his will.

The satellite dish screeches, and it _turns,_ pivoting on its base with the most atrocious creaking noise and a thrill of something jolts through Erik, a thrill of pure unbridled wonder_._

He turns his hand, and the dish turns with it, until it's nothing more than a white ellipse facing him and _Charles,_ Charles is right there beside him and he's smiling, wider than Erik's ever seen him smile before.

Erik's face pulls into a smile bigger than he thought himself capable of, and he doubles over again, laughing from the exertion and disbelief and above all, the overwhelming sense of accomplishment_, _that he's done the impossible.

When Charles's hand finds his shoulder, a welcome weight, he knows that it was worth it.

Staying was worth it.

_._

_._

_._

His fingertips still tingle from the exhilaration of moving that dish earlier. Erik smiles to himself as he walks down the corridor of Charles's house, thinking of his smile when Erik did it, full of pride and amazement.

_I can't shoot anybody point blank, let alone my friend_.

The breath sours on his tongue, and he lapses back into his usual brooding state. Erik jerks the doorknob more forcefully than he'd admit, and swings the door open.

Almost immediately, he hears the faint current of breathing in the room, and reaches for the lamp on the bedside table, clicking it on.

"Well, this is a surprise," he says, keeping his voice neutral with practised ease.

Raven beams at him from under the duvet. "The nice kind?"

"Get out, Raven. I want to go to bed." Just what he needs, Charles's little sister lying in his room like a stubborn cat, trying to seduce him on the night before they attain freedom for their people. And hopefully not die trying. "Maybe in a few years."

Instead of vacating his bed like he's asked, Raven shifts into what he supposes is an older appearance. "How about now?"

"I prefer the real Raven," he says.

She smiles and changes back into her younger form.

"I said the _real_ Raven."

She hesitates, the meaning in his words settling in, then lets the cobalt blue scales spider their way over the pale skin, her hair morphing from long, curly and blonde to short and red. Raven stares at him with cautious yellow eyes, her shoulders tensed up, clearly expecting an insult.

"Perfection," says Erik, and then he wonders why he said that. Strange—it's like his mind is on autopilot, trying to get something that he doesn't know he needs.

No, what the hell is he thinking, he doesn't _need_, much less _want_ anything. Well, maybe he does, but no one needs to know that and it's not this, anyway. Erik tries not to think about what he actually wants and prays that she'll go away soon.

Raven bats her eyelashes, boldness replaced by flattered shyness. "Could you pass me my robe?"

"You don't have to hide," Erik says. "Have you ever looked at a tiger and thought you ought to cover it up?"

He asks himself what he's doing, why he's suddenly switched from chiding Raven to encouraging her, why he's doing it to her, _his sister, _of all people_._ Raven looks both astonished and amused.

"No. But…"

"You're an exquisite creature, Raven. All your life the world's tried to tame you. It's time for you to be free."

Slowly, he lifts the covers and slides into bed with her, and she tilts her face up to his. Their lips meet, and it's good, almost good enough to make him forget.

They sink deeper into the bed, he kisses her harder, and Raven's cool scaly hands slide up his back. Erik moves his head into the crook of her neck as she leans up to his ear, and he's about to press his lips to her skin when she speaks.

"Stop."

Raven pushes gently at him, and he draws back into a sitting position. She stares at him with knowing, catlike eyes.

Erik would very much like to say that his mind is currently clouded with desire for the gorgeous young woman in front of him as well as confusion as to why she's stopping, but that would be a lie.

"You don't want _me,_" Raven says. There is no hurt in her voice, only the calm statement of fact. "You want a distraction from what you _actually_ want. Isn't that right, Erik?"

"That's very hypocritical, isn't it, coming from the person who snuck into my room and lay in my bed hoping for me to ravish them," Erik replies at once, in an attempt to paper over the embarrassing accuracy of her deduction.

Raven pouts, but they both know he's right.

As is she.

She sighs and gets out of the bed. Erik watches her as she picks up her robe and pulls it on, tying the sash around her waist, before she sits down in the armchair.

"I've known Charles since I was a girl," she says. "I know his hair. His smile. The exact distance between his eyes. Appearance-wise, nothing out of the ordinary to me, or to anyone, though he always seems to think the girls at the pub disagree."

Erik holds his breath, ignores the slight pulse of jealousy in his temples. He thinks he knows where this is going, but maybe he's just being paranoid—

"So you can't blame me for wondering, Erik." Raven props her cheek on her hand. "Why _do_ you stare at him so much?"

Erik looks away from her. Then decides that it's better if he says it face to face, and looks back.

"It appears you already know why."

Raven's eyes widen.

"Holy fuck," she says, and for once, Erik isn't in the mood to pick on her language.

Erik sighs.

"Holy fuck is right," he mutters, pressing his hands over his eyes and flopping backwards into his pillow.

"No, I mean _holy fuck,_ as in I-owe-Alex-fifty-bucks holy fuck." Raven pauses until the silence grows too cumbersome for her liking. "You know he's not… _you know_, right?"

"I was, in fact, _aware _of that, Raven," Erik says, failing to keep the bitterness from his voice. "It's fairly obvious, isn't it, what with the way he constantly makes those moon-eyes over at Agent MacTaggert." He sounds peevishly jealous, even to his own ears. That's not good. Not at all.

Raven sighs again.

"I've told you mine," says Erik. "Your turn."

Her face closes off instantly.

"It's only fair," Erik shrugs.

She leaves the armchair and sits on the edge of the bed. Her shoulders are hunched, and Erik feels a surge of protectiveness towards this girl with her blue skin and innocent smile.

He can see why Charles couldn't leave her be.

"Hank, he..." Raven gulps. "He's been working on a serum… using my DNA. No, no, he didn't do anything to me, I let him take a sample of it," she clarifies hurriedly, shrinking away from Erik's look of indignation. "He thinks that it'll..." She gestures weakly at herself.

"It'll change your natural blue form into something that conforms to the ideal societal image?"

She ducks her head.

"I admit that I may not have wanted to sleep with you," Erik says, and she giggles. "But I meant what I said."

The smile fades from Raven's face. "I—we… we just want to look normal. The serum won't affect our abilities, only our looks—"

"And you know that the two are a package deal." Erik frowns. Then he remembers something, the way that Charles shut him down on those steps.

"I won't stop you from doing what you feel is right," he says. "But I believe that what will be will be. I suggest you do the same."

Raven stares at him, as if surprised by his newfound wisdom. Then she smiles.

"Thanks for not being an asshole, Erik."

"Any time," he replies. She gets up to leave.

"Just a question." Raven whirls around, and his heart warms at the cheeky grin on her lips. "So you wouldn't sleep with me even if I _was_ older?"

He shakes his head at her, fighting the stubborn grin trying to manifest on his face. Raven laughs, and the door closes softly behind her.

_What will be will be._

Erik sighs. Practising what you preach really is a lot harder than he thought.

.

.

.

_What will be will be,_ he'd told Raven the night before.

But _no_, Erik thinks, his earlier poisoned anger replaced by panicked denial, no no no no no, as he kneels in the sand of the beach next to Charles, his head lolling in his lap, this wasn't meant to happen, it _can't_ have been, _this can't be happening._

_She didn't do this, Erik. You did. _

You _did. _

_you did you did it _you _did it you did this erik you did this to him its all your fault you made this happen_

"Us turning on each other, it's what they _want_." Erik blinks hard as he pleads with the man in his arms, and he can't remember the last time he's pleaded with anyone for anything but he can't seem to stop himself. "I tried to warn you, Charles." Charles's eyes are swimming with tears, or maybe it's Erik's eyes, he doesn't know what's happening anymore but _this wasn't supposed to happen_—

"I want you by my side," Erik continues, willing himself to go on, forcing his voice not to break. "We're _brothers,_ you and I." He draws in a sharp breath at his own words, at what they mean for him and Charles and no, he can't think about this right now. "All of us together, protecting each other..." He shakes Charles's shoulders as gently as he can, trying to make him see things his way. "_We want the same thing."_

Charles stares at him in silence, wheezing for breath, and Erik can feel him slipping out of his reach with every passing second, like a dying fish wriggling out of slick, gloved hands.

"My friend." Charles's voice is a rasp. His eyes, glassy with regret, reflect Erik's despair. "I'm sorry, but we do not."

Erik stares at Charles, the bleak reality draping itself over everything. Charles stares back at him, his lips pressed into a wavering line, and it's evident that he's doing his best not to cry and _what right does he have to cry when Erik is the one who's just been broken._

He waves his hand, and Moira hurries over, skidding to her knees in the sand, and she stutters meaningless apologies and takes Charles's head in her lap as he stands up and walks away.

The next time Erik Lehnsherr sees Charles Xavier, it's a decade later, in the kitchen attached to the Pentagon prison.

_._

_._

_._

"They told me you control metal," says the kid beside him, smirking unabashedly. His face is vaguely familiar—he has sharp black eyes and wispy silver hair, like shredded Mylar. And metal.

Erik frowns. "They?"

He can't imagine who would have the authority or the ability to break him out of here. Sure, he had—_has_ many allies outside the Pentagon, mostly mutant brothers-in-arms, but he remains unconvinced that they could pull anything of this scale off in broad daylight.

At least, judging from the sequence of meals, Erik guesses that it's daytime. Life finds a way, even in the Pentagon. The elevator jerks to a stop—he assumes they've reached the top floor that it services.

"You know," the kid says, cocking his head. Erik notes that he's ignored his question. "My mom once knew a guy who could do that."

The comment snags on his mind for a split second, before it's washed away in the flood of his thoughts. He can't really think of anyone who would know about his power and be old enough to be this kid's parents, except—

Before he can think it, he slams the doors of his mind shut, sealing the memories away once again. He's gone ten years without remembering those times, thinking those thoughts. He can go on for more.

Instead, he decides to focus his energy on willing the pain in his neck into disappearing, when the elevator door slides open to reveal two men with a bad case of stubble and a pair of familiar blue eyes staring back at him in shock.

Erik makes the mistake of looking into them, and immediately, all the thoughts are wiped from his mind.

"Charles?" he breathes.

He's soaked, just like when they first met. Only this time, he's definitely not as clean-shaven as he had been, his eyes are filled with hate, and Erik can feel it overflowing in the magnificent punch he delivers to his face.

Erik flies backward and slides to the floor of the elevator. Charles paces restlessly in a circle, before coming to stand in front of him in furious silence.

"Good to see you too, old friend," he says, as he massages his jaw and tries to pretend that the hurt is only physical. "And walking."

"No thanks to _you_." Charles's voice is controlled, but Erik can still hear the wounded anger burning beneath the ice.

"You're the last person in the world I expected to see today," he goes on.

"_Believe_ me," Charles spits. Erik can't remember if he used to be this venomous. He doesn't think so. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to. If we get you out of here, we do it _my_ way. No killing."

"No helmet." Erik stares past Charles at a spot on the wall. It isn't very worthy for him to be looking at, but it's decidedly less distracting. "I couldn't disobey you even if I wanted."

Charles's eyes flash with an emotion Erik can't identify. "I'm _never_ getting inside of that head again." He stares Erik down, or rather, stares him _up,_ since Erik is still taller than him. That much hasn't changed, at least. "I need your _word_, Erik."

Erik bites back everything he wants to say, and nods.

The sprinklers continue to rain noisily on the floor.

And the double doors at the other end of the room fly open.

Police flood the kitchen, raising plastic guns (smart) and screaming at them to stand down.

"Charles," Erik says, more a request than a warning.

"Hands up, or we _will_ shoot!"

_"Freeze them, Charles," _Erik repeats, but nothing can prepare him for what Charles says next, the two words he says in a flat, hopeless tone, a tone that indicates a resignation he never would have allowed Erik to give in to.

"I can't."

He stares at Charles, the horror hardening and sinking into his stomach, but Charles makes no move, his eyes fixed on the dozen or so armed personnel surrounding them.

It can't be what he did…

Can it?

Erik grits his teeth, banishing the thought, and concentrates. The metal in the kitchen dances under his command, knives and forks and pans rattling and ready to obey him. If he can't help Charles the way he helped Erik, then the only thing he can do is get them out of here. And he will do just that.

Promises be damned.

_._

_._

_._

Turns out, he didn't have to lift a finger. The kid—his name is Peter, Erik later learns—took care of all of them before he could so much as take a breath.

They sit on the plane to Paris (Erik has no idea who owns this plane and he doesn't care), suspended in an uneasy silence. Erik feels Charles's eyes on him, piercing as they always were, a burning cold beam on his skin. Every now and then he trades glances with their companion, the one with the claws, before returning to his attempt to presumably drill Erik full of holes with his gaze.

At length, Erik asks, "How did you lose them?"

He half-expects Charles to snub his feeble attempt at conversation, but he just answers in a deceptively toneless voice. "The treatment for my spine affects my DNA."

Erik turns his head to look at Charles properly. Inside his chest, a small spark of something unpleasant is building. "You sacrificed your power so you could _walk?"_

"I sacrificed my power so that I could _sleep_," Charles says, the tamped-down pain in his voice closing a warm hand of sorrow around Erik's heart. He shakes his head and looks away. "What do you know about it?" he continues, glancing out the window. Clearly he thinks this exchange over and done with.

"I've lost my fair share," Erik says, dragging out the dead conversation. He does not elaborate. He will not.

"Huh." A scornful smile invades Charles's face, and he shakes his head, his expression transitioning back to stone. "Dry your eyes, Erik, it doesn't justify what you've done."

"You have no idea what I've done," Erik says.

"I know that you took the things that mean the most to me," Charles shoots back, a manic glint crossing his face.

"Well, maybe you should have fought _harder_ for them," Erik bites, and he knows he shouldn't be encouraging this but he's tired of letting everything slide, tired of pretending it doesn't hurt, that _he _doesn't still hurt after all this time.

The insane light spreads over Charle's entire expression, and some sick part of Erik delights in the sight. "If you want a fight, Erik—"

"Charles, sit down," Logan begins, but Erik knows there's no stopping this one.

"—_I will give you a fight!_"

"Let him come," Erik says, with as much ice as he can muster, even as the flame builds into a bonfire inside him, searing away any remaining self-control he has.

Charles flings himself at Erik, fingers tangling in his shirt, and an alarm goes off in his head from having Charles up in his face, so close yet so far, and he turns it off, shuts it away and cuts his emotions off from his face.

"_You abandoned me!_" yells Charles, crazed, too-long hair falling in his eyes. "_You took her away, and you abandoned me_—"

"Angel," Erik says.

The maelstrom of emotion slides off Charles's face as he realises what Erik's doing, and he loosens his grip, eyes widening.

"Azazel," Erik continues, "Emma," out of the corner of his eye he sees Hank's terrified face and the needles going mad on their dials, "Banshee," Charles stumbles to the side, and he vaguely registers the turbulence he's causing, "mutant brothers and sisters, _all dead!" _

The plane lists to one side, the metal body of the craft groaning with his rage, and Charles scrabbles for purchase on the seats as he struggles to keep from falling.

"Countless others experimented on, _butchered!_" Erik bellows the last word as forcefully as he can, packing all his pent-up anger into it, and a horrible satisfaction fills him when he sees Charles wince at his words. "_Where were you, Charles?_ _We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you?!" _

He can see real fear burning in Charles's gaze now, but he can't bring himself to feel sorry about it. "_Hiding!_" Erik roars, the anger coming to a fever pitch, clouding his mind, a hot red mist of madness. "You and Hank, pretending to be something you're not—"

"_Erik,_" Hank pleads, and he realises what he's done.

"_You_ abandoned us all," Erik spits, but the words he means to say hang between them, already in their minds.

You _abandoned me._

The plane rights itself in the air as he regains his control with a fair amount of effort. Plates slide across the carpeted floor, clinking against each other. Hank breathes a sigh of relief as the dials return to their regular equilibrium.

Charles holds his gaze in the horrified silence, and for once Erik doesn't have to fight to keep his expression impenetrable.

He turns and escapes into the cockpit with Hank, disappearing from sight. The minute he rounds the corner, everything that Erik's been holding back washes over him again, and he lets out a wavering breath as the guilt comes, slamming into him hard like a tidal wave.

"So you were always an asshole."

Erik shoulders his moment of weakness aside and turns to look at Logan, who produces a cigar with casual coolness, like he hasn't just sat through a period of magnetic turbulence caused by an extremist ferrokinetic. Alright, extremist is a subjective term.

"And I take it we're best buddies in the future?" It's the most sarcastic remark Erik will allow himself to make right now.

Logan bobs his head as he lights a cigar. "Spent a lot of years trying to take you down, bub."

"And how's that work out for you?"

"You're like me," Logan says, pointing with his cigar in hand. A smirk flashes on his face. "You're a survivor." He takes a drag from it and gestures at the litter on the floor. "Wanna pick all that shit up?"

Erik breathes through his nose, standing among the wreckage he's caused. Fuck this. He'd take slow drowning over this any day.

Though, honestly, Erik doesn't see much difference between the two.

.

.

.

He sets the chessboard down on the small table between the seats, and Charles shoots him an unreadable look over his whiskey glass.

"Fancy a game?" Erik asks, by way of an apology. He just hopes that Charles can hear it. "It's been a while."

Charles looks away, speaking in a rush. "I'm not in the mood for games, thank you."

Lightning crackles outside the plane. Erik stares at him in a futile attempt to piece together this new incarnation of Charles, before sighing and reaching for the whiskey himself.

"I haven't had a real sip in ten years," Erik says, sitting down on the armrest of the chair in the opposite row. He lifts his glass and drinks, feeling the whiskey burn his throat.

Charles is still staring out the window, the lightning making his face flash blinding white.

"I didn't kill the president," Erik says, failing to keep the desperation, his need for Charles to believe him just this once, from leaking into his voice.

"The bullet _curved_, Erik." Charles says the words like they're the final nail in the coffin of a mystery, and Erik pretends it doesn't feel like a stab in the back.

"Because I was trying to save him," he presses on, and Charles frowns. "They took me out before I could."

"Why would you try and save him—"

"Because he was one of us."

The crease between Charles's eyes slackens, and Erik's gut manages to do a lurching flight in hope before he rolls his eyes and laughs. He looks away, then back at Erik, as if that will change what he said or _how _he said it, before he shakes his head, a tired, conflicted smile on his face.

"You must think me so foolish." The words feel like a slap in Erik's face. Then, "You always said they'd come after us."

"I never imagined they'd use Raven's DNA to do it."

Charles looks him up and down, then gestures with his glass in hand. "When did you last see her?"

Trust Charles to ask about her, even when she left him on the beach in Cuba. He clearly hasn't let go of her yet.

_You took her away, and you abandoned me. _

You _took her away._

You _abandoned_ _me._

Erik clicks his tongue and shifts over into the seat opposite Charles, half-expecting him to chase him off. Charles does no such thing, instead electing to stare him down from his seat.

"The day I left for Dallas."

Charles sighs—Erik's ability to actually produce an answer seems to have appeased him somewhat. "And how was she?"

"Strong. Driven. Loyal—"

"How—how _was _she?" The frown reappears, and Erik looks down, then back at him.

He had watched Raven grow from the shy girl in his bed to a confident woman, from playful to serious. From light-hearted to weighed down, as the battle dragged on and they lost more and more.

He finds he doesn't have the heart to tell him. He doesn't want to acknowledge that her transformation from a child into a soldier is his fault, but he knows it is, and he knows that, powers or no, Charles will know.

And while he knows he'll be able to handle that—of course he will—he'd rather not.

"She was… we were..." He tries to hold off from giving a straight answer. Charles tilts his head, waiting. "I could see why she meant so much to you."

He sighs, as if he was expecting nothing better. Turns his gaze back to the window, sips at his drink again.

"You should be proud of her, Charles," Erik says, trying to wrest back control of the already-slipping conversation. "She's out there fighting for our cause—"

"_Your_ cause," Charles cuts in, and Erik notices that they've been steadily leaning closer to one another as the conversation went on. He tries not to think too much of it. "The girl I raised, she was not capable of killing."

"You didn't raise her, you grew up with her," Erik says. "She couldn't stay a little girl forever, that's why she left—"

"_She left_," Charles grits, eyes hard, "because _you_ got inside her head."

Erik considers his words for a moment, then, without meaning to, lets out a short laugh. "That's not my power."

Charles glances at him.

"She made a choice," Erik begins.

"And we both know where that choice leads," Charles says, "don't we? She's going to _murder_ Trask, they're going to _capture _her," Erik flinches at the visceral description, "_and then they're going to wipe us out."_

The once-familiar novelty of being referred to by Charles as _us _sends a little leap of something through him, something he decides not to recognise.

"Not if we get to her first," he tells him. "Not if we change history tomorrow."

Charles sighs.

"I'm sorry, Charles," Erik says.

Charles looks at him with eyebrows raised. It feels skeptical, like a sardonic _Are you really?_, and it upsets Erik enough that he goes on. "For what happened, I truly am."

Charles shuts his eyes and presses his mouth into a line, sitting back in his chair. Erik watches him, helpless. Suddenly, he downs the rest of his drink and leans forward again, quickly.

"It's been a while since I've played." He clears his throat, as if that will erase the conversation, and studies the board. Erik does the same.

"I'll go easy on you," Erik says. "Might finally be a fair fight." He shrugs and drinks.

Charles fidgets, glancing up at him. "You have the first move."

Erik catches his gaze, then moves the pawn forward, sliding it smoothly over the board without touching it.

_._

_._

_._

The cloudy darkness parts, and his eyes fly open. Erik levitates to his feet, and that's when he realises he really isn't.

Against his will, he's turning, his hand is moving, and a mangled steel frame rises off the ground. The hold on his mind slackens, and Erik blinks at the spot he's just cleared without meaning to.

His arm is slung around Hank's shoulders, his waist encircled by Hank's arms as he leans on the younger man for support. There's a patch of drying blood on his temple, and his clothes are dusted with debris.

Erik's eyes drift down to the grass, where his helmet lies a few feet away.

The events of the recent past rush through his mind; being broken out of the Pentagon, the botched treaty in Paris, him and Raven in the phone booth, the stadium uprooting itself at his command, Logan's body twisted with rusted rebars, and finally, Raven's heel connecting with his head.

"If you let them have me, I'm as good as dead," he says. "You know that."

"I know," Charles replies.

For a moment, his eyes spark with a fire that Erik hasn't seen in a while, and he almost smiles.

They stand quietly, looking at each other.

"Goodbye, old friend."

"Goodbye, Erik."

Erik raises his hands and lifts himself up, away from Raven and Hank and Charles. Maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to let go this time.

_._

_._

_._

Nothing in this world can make him let go of them now.

But there's nothing, _no one_ left to hold on to.

Erik holds his family in his arms, rocking back and forth as if it will shake the life back into them, while the bodies of their killers lie sprawled in a half-moon behind them, no longer a danger. No longer alive.

He _tried_. He did. He was _good. _

And in return, they took it all away.

"_Is this what you want from me?!_" he bellows, shaking his bloodied fist, his daughter's necklace, up at the heavens that couldn't care less. "Is this what I am?"

_Is this what I am?_

_Destined to lose everything I hold on to?_

He kneels in the forest, alone.

_._

_._

_._

He knows, the second he's no longer alone in his mind. He can feel it—the presence in his head has grown familiar.

Not for the first time, Erik finds himself despising it. Despising _him, _despite everything.

"Charles."

If he closes his eyes, he can almost see him sighing. "Hello, old friend."

His heart clenches against his will.

"I am—_sorry,_ I am _so_ sorry," Charles says.

_No, you aren't. You have no reason to be. You're just saying it because you don't want me to join them. To join him. Because you can't control him._

"I feel your pain. And your loss."

_You don't. You don't, Charles, you don't know what it's like to try _so hard _to let go at last, only for it to come swimming back and roping you back into its depths. You could never._

_I could never._

"You think because you can see into my head," Erik says, quietly, "you know how it feels?"

Silence.

"You're looking in the wrong place, Charles," Erik continues.

"What happened to them, it was terribly wrong," Charles says. "But _come back to us,_ I can _help_ you."

The familiarity of it, of how naive Charles still chooses to be after all these years, almost forces a bitter smile onto his face. It's happening all over again, Erik the wayward soul, and Charles, the guiding light showing the way.

He loads as much silent venom as he can into the next words he says.

"Help me?" Erik asks, daring him to go on.

"Think of your wife. Think of your daughter," Charles presses on, oblivious, and a hot wave of anger at the shameless mention of his family flares through him. "What would they have wanted—"

"They would have wanted to _live,_" Erik cuts in, now gritting his teeth to stop himself from yelling.

Charles falls silent.

"I tried your way, Charles. I tried to be like them. _Live_ like them. But it always ends the same way."

There are no words now. Nothing can change his mind.

"They took everything from me," Erik says, his voice bleeding with the pain.

Something weak in him is screaming quietly, telling him to stop, telling him that it's _Charles, _that he's just trying to help, you can't turn him away like this, you _can't_.

He quashes it easily, drowning it beneath the waves of pain.

"Now," he says, turning back to them, "we'll take everything from them."

_._

_._

_._

The purple sphere peels away, leaving them standing in a place Erik has never seen.

He lets his eyes flick to each of them in turn: Raven, blonde curls tied in a messy plait, her eyes widening as she recognises him; Alex, a charred black hole in the middle of his shirt; Moira, standing nervously with her hands half-raised; Hank, lips parted in surprise.

And in the middle of them all he sees what Apocalypse has done, what _he's _helped him to do.

Erik tries to pretend that the sight of Charles's head lolling unconscious from the chair doesn't affect him in the slightest.

_Come back to us, I can help you._

"_Erik_." Raven's voice is laced with disbelief.

He thrusts out a hand, and the wheelchair rises off the floor.

Raven lunges forward, screaming Charles's name as he speeds towards them, hanging from the chair like a ragdoll. The winged one extends a metal wing, shielding Charles, as Alex breaks into a run.

"Hey!" Fury smoulders on Alex's face as he dashes towards them. "Hey, asshole!"

"All will be revealed, my child," Apocalypse says, voice echoing unnaturally as the portal rematerialises.

"Stop!" Hank yells, and through the walls of the sphere Erik sees Alex drop into a crouch and Hank scream as red energy bursts from his hands, and then they're gone.

They're gone.

_._

_._

_._

He groans as the sun hits his eyes, and he raises a hand to his face as he tries to right himself.

"You're—blocking me," Charles says haltingly. "How?"

"I can shield their minds from your power." Apocalypse gloats, relishing the inevitability of his course as he strides towards him. "It's one of the many gifts I've acquired throughout the millennia. But to… _see _inside a mind, to control it..."

Charles looks to Erik, desperate, as if he expects something from him, and he has no choice but to look away.

Apocalypse sits down opposite Charles, gesturing with an armoured hand. His voice is hungry, predatory, and Erik swallows the unease that rises in his throat. "That's _your _gift."

Charles glances at the young Egyptian girl behind him, who rebuffs his silent appeal with a wall of contempt.

"You saw it, didn't you? The glory of what's to come."

Charles does not deign to answer. He turns his head, and once again, Erik is met with the full force of his gaze.

"You're going to take part in all this killing?" His voice wavers, but only Erik knows it. "And destruction?"

"It's all I've ever known," Erik says, pushing aside the part of him that's trying to show him otherwise.

"No, it isn't." Charles's voice breaks just a fraction. "You've just forgotten."

"No, Charles, I _remember_," Erik replies. The memory of the forest, the factory, the camp, the pain and hurt and injustice of it all rushes through him, hardening his heart, sealing the emotion off from his voice. "Your way doesn't _work_."

"I've shown him a better way," Apocalypse joins in, and a shudder runs down Erik's spine from the way he's smiling. "A better world—"

"No, you've just tapped into his rage and pain," Charles retorts firmly. "That's all you've done." He glances at Erik again, and his expression changes, from steadfast to something hopeful and welcoming and understanding and no, Erik's not going to fall for that again, he _can't_, he's lost too much. "I _told _you from the moment that I met you that there is _more_ to you, Erik, there is _good _in you too—"

Erik interrupts Charles before he can go on, and for that, he gets to see the moment that the last of his hope falls off his face.

"Whatever it is you think you think you saw in me, Charles..." He keeps his voice emotionless, steady, as he says the words that will take him beyond return. "I _buried _it. With my family."

And now there is nothing hopeful left in Charles's gaze, drowned in the dark disappointment that fills his face.

Erik tries to do the same.

_._

_._

_._

The metal swirls around him, cold and reliable, obeying him, protecting him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees two figures appear as if out of thin air. The blue-skinned, red-haired one doubles over, hands on her knees as she catches her breath.

Erik ignores them. They can't stop him now.

The other one—it's Peter, he realises, and wonders for a moment why he's here—pushes against his shield, but to no avail. With a grunt, he steps back, frustrated, speaks to Raven urgently.

She turns her head, and without looking, Erik knows her eyes are on him.

"Erik," she calls.

He pauses, then opens his eyes. Turns to look at her.

"Mystique."

Raven's eyes are imploring. "I know you think you've lost everything," she says. "But you haven't. You have me. You have _Charles._"

Erik can't help but scoff at that. Now _there's_ something to imagine.

Raven turns to Peter, who ducks his head. "You have more family than you know," she continues. "You never had the chance to save your family before. But you do now." She gives him one last look, not expectant, just tired. "That's what I've come here to tell you."

Erik shifts his attention to the kid beside her.

"And you?"

"I'm your—I'm here for my family too," Peter fumbles.

In the distance, he can hear lightning cracking, concrete crumbling, energy thrumming. Voices, young and broken, yelling in surprise, hope, anger, despair.

An engine roars to life, and a jet-black plane rises through the dust. Raven jerks towards it, shoulders rising in hope, and it hits him.

Charles is on that plane, Erik just _knows_ it, and all of a sudden the voice in his mind is screaming, _begging_ them to get out of there, get him out of there before it's too late—

The horsemen attack, the plane dips steeply, and Erik's mind stops dead and all he can do is watch as it goes up in a blaze of hungry fire.

Erik hangs still in the air, dead in the water. It's like he's not in control of his body anymore; he doesn't remember how to breathe, how to talk, how to do anything at all.

"Charles," Raven whispers, horrified.

He told himself he'd lost too much, that he wouldn't lose anymore…

He failed.

Again.

As if waking from a dream, Raven turns to him.

"I'm going to fight for what I have left." Her eyes are resigned but determined, and Erik wants to pull her into his arms and whisper his apologies over and over and over, but he stays where he is. "Are you?"

She turns, and Peter mover a hand to the back of her neck, just as he did Erik's a long time ago.

And just like that, they're gone.

Erik is alone again.

The fight rages on, but he's far removed from it, encased in a solitude of his own making. He pays no heed to the world, and it pays none to him.

Without warning, the past pulls Erik backwards into its embrace, and he's back on the steps of the CIA, where he made the choice that changed his life.

_There is so much more to you than you know. Not just pain, and anger. _

_There's good too, I felt it_.

He's back under open sky, a white satellite dish in the distance, his mind far away, somewhere it hadn't been in a long time.

_It's not just me you're walking away from. Here you have the chance to be part of something much bigger than yourself_. _And it needs you, Erik._

_They need you, Erik._

The words bounce around in his mind, the meaning sinking in slowly, the realisation that they need him, his family needs him. He's not the one who's alone.

But they will be.

And as Erik looks on, the Charles of days long gone turns and walks away, his steps fading into the dark, and he takes the past with him.

A tear makes its way down Erik's face, bringing him back to the present.

The dust parts, and he sees Apocalypse stalk through the ruin, watches as he bellows for Charles. Erik's guts do a frantic, violent swoop—he's still alive, there's still hope—

Out of nowhere, there's a flurry of movement, and Apocalypse is zipping around in mid-air—no, being attacked.

_Peter,_ Erik realises, and he's too stunned to do anything other than watch everything unfold faster than he can see, and before he knows it Apocalypse is standing over Peter, and he's screaming, and Psylocke is there and she whips her sword across his neck and he catches her by the throat and then it's not Psylocke anymore.

The blue scales spider over the smooth skin, long black tresses disappearing in favour of short red hair.

_Raven._

_No._

He does nothing to stop the tears now falling freely as Apocalypse squeezes the life out of his family, yells for Charles, lets Raven slip to the floor like a ragdoll, and it's happening all over again, the beach, he's _losing _them again—

Erik's heart nearly stops as he pauses, and raises a hand.

Horror grips him as he draws it through the air slowly, and the wall of the building crumbles, fades away, revealing the small group cowering behind it, and Erik loses the last remnants of his focus, the metal falling from his grip as he drops to his knees.

_Charles_.

His brow is creased, eyes squeezed shut in an all-too-familiar expression of agony, and his students are buzzing around him, worried, as his chest rises in shallow, weak breaths and Erik _can't, _he can't watch this anymore.

He _won't_.

He slams the first beam into the ground, and the next, barring his way. The blue-skinned figure turns to face him, and he fights off the shudder that travels through his body.

"_You betray me?_" His eyes burn with the rage and hate of millennia.

"No," Erik says, and even before he speaks the next words, harsh and blunt, he knows it is the truth. "I betrayed them."

_I betrayed my family._

He raises his hands.

_But I can make it right._

Erik grits his teeth and focuses. On the point, just _there_, where Charles showed him, the point that lies beyond hate and anger, the point that leads to something so much stronger.

He remembers Raven smiling in the doorway, her white robe tied around her waist, Hank grinning as Cerebro fired up and his work came to life, Peter smirking in the elevator and saying something about karate, and he remembers Charles, holding the gun with a wavering hand, flaming with anger as he threw a punch at Erik, smiling wryly as they said their silent goodbyes.

The metal flies past in deadly, gleaming, lacerating arcs, a seemingly endless torrent, and Apocalypse screams, and screams, and screams.

And at the end of the battle, it's like Cuba all over, Charles once again surrounded by the people who have loved him long and deep, and him, standing close enough to watch, and once again, just far enough away that he cannot do the same.

_._

_._

_._

"The world's already begun rebuilding its arsenals," Charles tells him, as they watch Raven and Hank brief the new class. It wasn't too long ago that Erik and Charles were the ones standing in line, waiting to save the world.

It wasn't too long ago that Charles could still stand. Erik's heart pangs at the unwanted reminder, and he pushes it out of his mind.

"It's human nature, Charles."

"_I_ still have hope," Charles says.

"Oh, yes." Erik lets out a short laugh and glances at the blue-lit Danger Room. How typical of Charles, to never lose faith in the hopeless cases. "'Hope'."

"I was right about Raven," notes Charles, tilting his head, and here he smiles faintly, a wry look. "I was even right about you."

Erik looks back at him, and Charles smiles thinly as he walks over. "What about the rest of the world?" he asks. "Doesn't it ever wake you up in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they'll come for you." He nods at the room full of young, fragile, exceptional people. "And your children."

Charles's eyes are piercing. "It does indeed."

"What do you do when you wake up to that?"

"I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul that comes to my school looking for trouble."

Erik feels his mouth quirk at the corner in a half-smile.

"You're sure I can't convince you to stay?" Charles calls as he makes for the elevator.

Erik stops walking. Lets the offer simmer in his mind, so innocent and yet so tempting.

"You're psychic, Charles," he replies. "You can convince me to do anything."

He can hear Charles smiling as he speaks. "Goodbye, old friend."

"Good luck, Professor."

_._

_._

_._

He sends her away after she destroys a helicopter sent for her from the military. She's too dangerous, and Erik knows that even with his firsthand experience of uncontrollable power, he can't do anything to help her rein it in. Besides, it was clear she wasn't going to open up, and that would spell trouble in time. As demonstrated.

Erik breathes through his nose as he clears the wreckage of the helicopter, pulling the warped rotors from the walls of the house with care. He keeps his shoulders relaxed, concentrates on the feel of the bent iron in his grip as he works it free.

He should never have thought that he could help her, that he could do for her what Charles had done for him. If even Charles couldn't help her…

For the first time in years, he has to try not to think about how Charles might be feeling right now.

A while after that, he's standing on the watchtower they always hoped they'd never need to use, when he sees the black silhouette ruffling the trees as it lands.

Hank McCoy walks toward him, an unreadable look on his face, and by the time night falls over Genosha, he's found out whose blood that was.

After the grief subsides enough that he can breathe, he and Hank sit quietly around the small fire outside his house. The words Hank mumbled to him earlier resound in his mind like a broken record on loop.

_Raven's dead. _

_Jean killed her._

And he didn't even get to see her one last time.

_Jean killed her. _Jean _killed her._

Out of the blue, Hank speaks up. Erik nods at his words. They _have _had their differences, and they did both love Raven in their own ways.

He doesn't tell Hank that a) unlike Hank, Erik only ever loved Raven as a sister, and b) unlike Erik, Hank only loved Raven.

"If I find her, I'm going to kill her," Erik says.

Not only because Jean killed Raven, though that's the primary factor in his decision.

He knows that as much as she isn't a force of death and evil on purpose, Jean Grey is a lost cause. He knows that Charles isn't going to accept that. He won't let it go.

And as much Erik wishes he doesn't know how that will play out, he does.

_._

_._

_._

They stride down the lane, eyes on the yellow-lit building before them, when his voice comes, just as Erik expected.

"Hello, old friend."

Erik doesn't remember anyone else calling him that. And that's why it has to stop.

_God_, they have to find a new greeting line.

"Save the 'old friend' shit, Charles, and stay out of my way," Erik tells him.

"I'm sorry for what she did," Charles says coolly, "but I can't let you go in there."

The words don't feel right, coming from him—they sound _manufactured_, with a corporate, business-like detachment, and it's rubbing Erik the wrong way.

He thinks back to what Hank told him before leaving Genosha.

"_Charles… he's changed," he said, eyes glinting darkly. "He's not acting like himself. Hasn't been, for a while."_

_Erik frowned at that. "What do you mean?"_

"_I mean that you won't be able to reason with him anymore," Hank answered. _

"_What a shame. Reasoning was my Plan A."_

"_Erik."_

_He stopped his sarcastic remark and turned to see Hank's face smudged with discomfort._

"_He's not the same Charles in '83," Hank said. "He might deny it, but to him, it's not about helping the kids anymore. Sending the team into space was already a stretch. Letting Jean go out into the shuttle before the flare hit… that was too much."_

_Erik stared. Then, "He always was a stubborn bitch."_

_Hank's grin faded as soon as it appeared._

Now, as Erik stands at the entrance of the park, he realises what Hank meant, and his guts twist unpleasantly.

"You're always sorry, Charles, and there's always a speech," he says, striding towards him. "But nobody cares anymore."

"We do this here, now, they'll see us as _monsters_. Violent _freaks,_ fighting on the streets of New York," Charles insists, and Erik can't _believe_ what he's hearing, wishes he could grab hold of him and knock the sense back into that brain of his, make him wake up from this illusion of glory and reputation, but he can't.

"What did I tell you?" Erik tells Hank, who returns his glance. _Stubborn. Goddammit, stop being so stubborn._

"Dammit, man, your homeland will be _gone_!" Charles blusters. "_Everything_ you care about!"

"Save it."

"If you touch her, I will _fucking _kill you," spits the kid with the visor, Alex's brother, he remembers, striding forward.

Charles exhales sharply in disbelief. "Don't," for a moment it almost sounds as if he's pleading, but Erik knows better, "do this, Erik. Killing Jean will not bring Raven back."

_I'm not doing it for her alone_, Erik thinks, and he slams the door to his thoughts shut.

"The girl dies."

_._

_._

_._

"My kid used to be a fan," says the guard, ambling past the blue kid (Kurt), as they make the rounds of the carriage.

There are four or five of them, pacing in a tight circle before Erik and the others, shooting them venomous looks every once in a while. Erik can't say they aren't well deserved.

He grits his teeth and focuses on the grate beneath their feet. The metal is silent. Erik sighs.

"Raven had the right of it."

Erik looks up, at the same time as Hank, whose face is etched with shock and wariness.

"Jean was never the villain," Charles says, and Erik can see how hard it is for him to say the next few words. "_I_ was."

Hank looks at him for a moment, then sighs through his nose and drops his gaze.

"I should never have lied to her," Charles goes on. "I was wrong. But this power… inside of her, I never put that there. I would never do anything intentionally to hurt her, that isn't me and _this is not Jean._ We can still save her. She's still Jean inside."

The relief that diffuses through Erik at his words is almost overwhelming. Thank goodness, he's finally back. Erik tries not to show it.

He looks away, thinks of the girl, strapped to a metal board in the carriage next to theirs. Cuffs on her arms and legs and body and a collar around her neck for good measure. She didn't ask for this. No one did.

"What _exactly_ is controlling her?" he asks, and he can feel everyone's surprise that he's speaking up, but he doesn't much care.

Charles's voice is defeated. "I don't know. But this woman, this—_thing,_ has had a taste of that power and she'll be coming back for more, she'll be coming back for _Jean._"

"Good," Erik says. "Let her." No one here can control it, but maybe they can—

"She'll _kill _her to get it," Charles protests, and Erik's feeble hope for an easy way out is washed away. "But I promise you, the killing will not end there."

"That's not what Raven would have wanted," the visor boy (Scott) pitches in. "You know that." he turns to stare at Hank. "You both do."

Erik ducks his head, slightly surprised that the boy has managed to make him feel chastised, but his attention is drawn away by the metallic rattling of the ceiling, the rhythmic rattling that sounds eerily like—

_Footsteps._

Erik exchanges a glance with Charles, sees his own growing worry reflected there.

"Open four to five," the leader requests, speaking over the radio to someone outside, and pushes his way to the door. "Alright, you two, come with me. The rest of you, guard the prisoners!"

_They think they're mutants come to break us out, _Erik thinks, as the starkness of the situation dawns on him. "Don't be fools!" he cries, the desperation of it all threatening to pull him under as he leans forward, straining futilely against the harness. "You _need_ our help."

"Lock it down! Now!"

The soldiers troop out. The blast door falls shut, like the blade of a guillotine, and the fear bubbles bitterly in Erik's veins.

"Goddamn muties come to spring you," mutters one of the guards, a grizzled old man. Erik would love nothing more than to kick him in the face and break his nose. That ought to wake him up. Can't he see that they're all in danger, can't he _feel_ it?

"They're not mutants," Charles tells him, grim purpose in his voice. "Free us, you're going to need our help."

"We're the only chance you have," Erik adds.

The guard whirls on him."Keep your mouth shut," he spits, and Erik bites back the rest of his words, the restless tension rattling in his bones.

Metal groans as it's ripped from the train. There's a crash, and something explodes outside, and they all jump.

"What's the status on those mutants?" asks the guard.

There's a muffled reply and a burst of static, or maybe it's gunfire. Sirens scream their meaningless warnings.

Erik leans forward, waiting for something. He doesn't want to know what.

"What?" barks the guard, voice raising in building alarm. "They're not what?"

"_They're not_ _mutants!_" screams the soldier on the line, the cry crescendoing before being cut off.

The leader lowers his walkie-talkie.

"They're here for Jean," Scott says.

The door jitters, and the guard makes for it.

"Get ready to open fire," he commands the remaining soldiers, as if Scott hasn't just told them an important piece of information that could mean the difference between living and dying, and by _God_, Erik wishes they would get these cuffs off him, if only they would just get over themselves and let them _help_—

"Y-your kid was right about us," Kurt stutters, as the door makes a series of loud, forceful bangs. The soldiers, unheeding, level their guns at it. "We could help you—"

Another bang sounds, and a dent appears in the door.

"_Please!_" Kurt yells, and for once, Erik agrees wholeheartedly.

The banging continues, the dent growing bigger, more pronounced, and with a final blow, the door gives way.

"_Fire!_"

The alien's body seems to jiggle in the air as the bullets hit him—_it, _Erik reminds himself as he looks on in helpless horror. The rounds sink into its body, leaving no sign of any having been fired, and Erik's skin crawls with fear at the thought of it getting its hands on them, on—

The elevated turret guns it down, and it slumps to the side.

Two more fill its place.

"_There's more!_" yells someone, and it's chaos in here, all arms and legs and the orange blooms of gunfire, and all of a sudden a beep echoes among the din and the cuffs are off.

_Finally. _Erik shucks off the chains gladly and gets to his feet. The aliens form a line at one end of the carriage, their postures stoic and very clearly inhuman.

The mutants congregate, defiant, on the other end.

"We only want the girl." The leader's tone is dead. Not toneless, not controlled, just _dead. _"Step aside."

"No," Hank states, his voice boiling with anger. Charles glances at him, surprised.

"What are you doing?" Selene asks.

The blue fur licks over Hank's face, and he breathes heavily, steeling himself.

"What Raven would have."

He growls, and Erik raises a hand. The metal partitions free themselves from the walls and crush themselves against the corner, trapping the leader beneath, and everyone starts moving.

It's time to fight once more.

Erik decides that he hates trains.

.

.

.

He's just spent the last of his energy crushing an entire train car full of aliens (well done, Erik, have a gold star, oh you don't want it, never mind), when he hears thumping in the next cabin.

Even without looking, he knows that she's here. Call him dramatic, but it's like the temperature drops and the air grows heavy with fear in her presence.

Erik faces the blonde figure standing in the doorway. Without meaning to, he catches sight of Kurt's limp form behind her, and a blunt sabre of anger stabs through him.

Sheets of jagged metal rip free of the cabin walls, crumpling themselves against the open doorway, sealing the train car off from Jean and the kid and Charles. The alien stares at him with her soulless black eyes and artificial smile, and he stares right back.

She comments with an eerily casual air that he'd wanted to kill the girl not so long ago.

"I've had a change of heart," Erik says, gritting his teeth as he extends his reach into the deadly metal all around.

Guns lurch into the air, right themselves at his command, and he opens fire on her, a steady rush of bullets lodging themselves in her body, pushing her back but not enough to halt her steps, and Erik knows that all the bullets in the world won't stop her.

Magazine after magazine empties. Rifles and pistols clatter to the grated floor, useless. Erik backs against the makeshift door as the alien continues her approach, languid and unstoppable.

He can hear Charles's voice on the other side, pleading for Jean's forgiveness, begging for her to wake, and he can only hope that he's bought him enough time to do what he must.

He barely registers the metallic cold of the wall meeting his head, one, two hard slams brought about by a casual flick of the alien's wrist.

_._

_._

_._

It's been thirty years since Erik Lehnsherr nearly drowned trying to raise a submarine. Now he's pretty sure he could lift ten of the bloody things with one hand.

Thirty years, he thinks, marvelling at how long it's been. Thirty years since Charles Xavier stopped him on the steps of that CIA facility with nothing but a promise and a plea.

And now, here they are again. Only this time, the case in Erik's hand holds chess pieces and not classified files, and he's not the one with his back to the other.

He remembers what Charles said to him that first night. _You can't. You'll drown. You have to let go._

Erik couldn't let go, and that was why he was always drowning.

But he's older now, and wiser, and he's learned from his mistakes. To hold on when it's worth it, to let go when you must.

He calls to Charles, and sits down opposite him at the dainty cafe table. They make small talk, Erik asking about his retirement and whatnot, Charles offering responses with a faint smile on his lips.

He asks for a game, for old times' sake.

Charles accepts, and once more, Erik sets up the board.

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2 WEEKS THAT'S ALL I ASK TO GET PART 2 UP PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW THANKS BYE


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